This talk will examine the history of decolonization in Egypt through the lens of the country's prized export. By following transformations in the political economy and political meaning of cotton over half a century, it will explore how the dynamics of agrarian capitalism set the stage for the construction of a postcolonial republic under Gamal Abdel Nasser, where national liberation became equated with national development.
Ahmad Shokr is Associate Professor of History at Swarthmore College. He is the author of Harvests of Liberation: Cotton, Capitalism, and the End of Empire in Egypt. He is also a contributor to several volumes, including The Journey to Tahrir: Revolution, Protest, and Social Change in Egypt (2012); Dispatches from the Arab Spring: Understanding the New Middle East (2013); The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History (2016—); Global Middle East: Into the Twenty-First Century (2021); and A Critical Political Economy of the Middle East and North Africa (2021).
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